My Boyhood and Youth 



that I know of ever failed to listen with enthu- 

 siasm to the songs of the skylarks. Oftentimes 

 on a broad meadow near Dunbar we stood for 

 hours enjoying their marvelous singing and 

 soaring. From the grass where the nest was 

 hidden the male would suddenly rise, as straight 

 as if shot up, to a height of perhaps thirty or 

 forty feet, and, sustaining himself with rapid 

 wing-beats, pour down the most delicious 

 melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflow- 

 ing all bounds, then suddenly he would soar 

 higher again and again, ever higher and higher, 

 soaring and singing until lost to sight even on 

 perfectly clear days, and oftentimes in cloudy 

 weather "far in the downy cloud," as the poet 

 says. 



To test our eyes we often watched a lark 

 until he seemed a faint speck in the sky and 

 finally passed beyond the keenest-sighted of 

 us all. "I see him yet!" we would cry, "I see 

 him yet!" "I see him yet!" "I see him yet!" 

 as he soared. And finally only one of us would 

 be left to claim that he still saw him. At last 

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